August, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAM 
399 
CLEARING UP STREAM POLLUTION 
EXTRACTS FROM AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY THE HON. GEORGE D. PRATT AT A RECENT 
MEETING OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FISHERIES AT NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT 
HEN I received a letter from 
the president of this associa- 
tion asking me if I would de- 
liver an address at this annual conven- 
tion, I cast about in my mind for a sub- 
ject particularly appropriate for a meet- 
ing of the National Association of Fish- 
eries Commissioners. There are, of 
course, many phases of the work of the 
Conservation Commission that are of in- 
terest to an organization of this sort, but 
it has seemed to me that the one of most 
transcendent importance to the fisheries 
interests, upon which we are now en- 
gaged in New York State, is that of the 
gradual elimination of stream pollution. 
“I might readily consume the entire 
time allotted to me with a discussion of 
the extent of pollution in New York 
State, and might without exaggeration 
indulge in oratorical flights of any ex- 
tent regarding the evils that are only 
too apparent upon practically every wa- 
tershed. Such a philippic, however, 
would never get us anywhere. Indeed, 
I am inclined to believe that the various 
efforts to improve stream conditions in 
various parts of the country have too 
often been mere flashes in the pan, be- 
cause whatever energy has been expended 
has been consumed in deploring the sit- 
uation without corresponding construc- 
tive action. Certainly I do not need to 
tell the National Association of Fish- 
eries Commissioners what a tremendous 
handicap stream pollution is to their 
work, and how important it is that some 
effective steps be taken immediately to 
check its increase, and to set the tide 
running gradually in the opposite di- 
rection. 
“Many difficulties stand in the way of 
substantial results. We must not forget 
that the highly complicated industrial 
fabric of this country, and particularly 
of such great manufacturing states as 
New York, has been a matter of steady 
development for the last hundred years. 
Industry is the very life of the State, 
and whatever we do to eliminate pollu- 
tion must be done with full recognition 
of this fact. Accordingly, we must not 
start out upon any campaign to tear 
down. 
“The growth of industries has been 
determined very largely by the water 
courses. This is true because the larger 
streams provide transportation for manu- 
factured products while others, some- 
times even the smallest, provide power 
for running the factories. This has con- 
centrated the industries upon the water 
courses, and it has been most natural 
that in the absence of regulation to the 
contrary, they should utilize those courses 
for disposing of their waste product. 
The rights of ind istries to utilize wa- 
ter courses for transportation and for 
power are unquestionable, and very justly 
so. But it has been maintained by some 
that they have an equal right to dispose 
of their waste material through the same 
channels. This is an argument, how- 
ever, which is entirely erroneous, because, 
while it is true that by utilization of 
the stream for transportation and power, 
the rights of individuals and of the gen- 
eral public are in no way infringed, 
pollution frequently works very serious 
injury upon all those people upon the 
stream below, and also upon the general 
public. Sometimes this injury is very pos- 
itive, direct, and tangible, as when chem- 
ical substances render the water unfit 
for use in boilers or actually attack the 
hulls of vessels. The water in streams is 
frequently made harmful to live stock, 
and sometimes even fatal to it. We all 
know however, that, from the stand- 
A quiet country stream 
point of municipal water supply, pollu- 
tion of the stream from above is of quite 
secondary importance. We may take our 
water supply even a short distance be- 
low the outfall of a city sewage system, 
as many municipalities do, filter it, ster- 
ilize it with liquid chlorine, and quite 
comfortably dismiss it from our minds 
as entirely innocuous. I think you will 
agree with me that it is sometimes well 
that we can so dismiss it. 
“The fish, however, have no such easy 
time of it. Pollution kills them outright, 
or it drives them away, or it spreads a 
deposit of poisonous or other injurious 
substances over their spawning beds until 
reproduction is checked or entirely pre- 
vented. In very many cases it destroys 
the small aquatic organisms upon which 
the fish feed, which is only another way 
of destroying the fish themselves. Great 
stretches of our waters have thus been 
transferred into actual biological deserts, 
with the process still going on almost 
unabated. In some instances fish living 
in polluted water become so impregnated 
with the polluting substances that they 
are unfit for food, and therefore useless. 
It is with the effect of pollution upon fish 
life, and with methods of eliminating it 
from the waters, that we are chiefly in- 
terested here. I shall accordingly con- 
flne myself to a discussion of how we are 
attacking the problem in New York State. 
“The New York State law provides 
that ‘No dyestuffs, coal tar, refuse from 
a gas house, cheese factory, creamery, 
condensery, or canning factory, sawdust, 
shavings, tanbark, lime or other deleteri- 
ous or poisonous substance shall be 
thrown or allowed to run into any wa- 
ter, either private or public, in quanti- 
ties injurious to fish life inhabiting the 
same, or injurious to the propagation of 
fish therein.’ Another section provides 
that no sewage or substance injurious to 
oyster culture or fish shall be placed or 
allowed to run into the waters of the 
marine district. The administration of 
this law is in the hands of the Conser- 
vation Commission. 
“Until recently we have felt in the of- 
fice of the commission that this law was 
very inadequate, and that it permitted 
us to take action only in the grossest 
cases, where fish were visibly killed. In 
those cases our method has been to make 
a minnow test, by placing minnows in 
a wire basket both above and below the 
point of pollution. If the minnows be- 
low were killed in a short time, usually 
a matter of minutes, while those above 
continued to live indefinitely, we took 
this evidence into court and obtained a 
conviction and a fine. This method left 
the great majority of cases of pollution 
entirely untouched, and the fines really 
profited us nothing. The action was 
chiefly that of penalizing those who were 
so unfortunate as to have their results 
become spectacular, while others whose 
injury to streams was as bad or worse, 
though unproved, went unscathed. Such 
action was not progressive. I, there- 
fore, decided that what we needed was 
a strong, constructive, vigorous campaign 
to clear up stream pollution, rather than 
to penalize a few of the offenders. 
“The first requisite seemed to be that 
of getting preliminary control of the sit- 
uation. We needed to study the funda- 
mentals of the problem as a basis for 
rational action. Because of the scientific 
difficulties that beset us, I felt that I 
was particularly fortunate in being able 
to secure the services of Prof. Henry B. 
Ward, head of the Department of Zo- 
ology of the University of Illinois, whose 
attainments are so well known to you 
all. Professor Ward himself was in 
rather a dubious frame of mind, when he 
arrived after our preliminary arrange- 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 447 ) 
